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While we tend to forget that the sun is so active, the movie reminds us that it is constantly bursting with activity. Solar filaments and prominences — material that is held up in the sun’s corona — dance high above the sun’s surface; magnetic loops flow and ebb; and cooler material sits on the sun, looking like dark oceans.

You can even watch an eclipse: the SDO orbits so that every once in a while Earth crosses in front of it blacking out the sun.

If you’d like to watch the entire six-minute video, you can watch it here on YouTube.